“Ah, he said he was going early.” “Yes, sir; and he seemed so cross when he went. I could never have supposed so pleasant a gentleman could put himself into such a passion!” “What was the matter?” “Why, his walking-stick could not be found; it was not in the hall. He said he had left it in the study; we could not find it there. At last he found it himself in the old summerhouse, and said--I beg pardon--he said he was sure you had taken it there: that some one, at all events, had been meddling with it. However, I am very glad it was found, since he seems to set such store on it.” “Did Mr. Margrave go himself into the summer-house to look for it?” “Yes, sir; no one else would have thought of such a place; no one likes to go there, even in the daytime.” “Why?” “Why, sir, they say it is haunted since poor Sir Philip’s death; and, indeed, there are strange noises in every part of the house. I am afraid you had a bad night, sir,” continued the servant, with evident curiosity, glancing towards the bed, which I had not pressed, and towards the evening-dress which, while he spoke, I was rapidly changing for that which I habitually wore in the morning. “I hope you did not feel yourself ill?” “No! but it seems I fell asleep in my chair.” “Did you hear, sir, how the dogs howled about two o’clock in the morning? They woke me. Very frightful!” “The moon was at her full. Dogs will bay at the moon.” I felt relieved to think that I should not find Strahan in the breakfast-room; and hastening through the ceremony of a meal which I scarcely touched, I went out into the park unobserved, and creeping round the copses and into the neglected gardens, made my way to the pavilion. I mounted the stairs; I looked on the floor of the upper room; yes, there still was the black figure of the pentacle, the circle. So, then, it was not a dream! Till then I had doubted. Or might it not still be so far a dream that I had walked in my sleep, and with an imagination preoccupied by my conversations with Margrave,--by the hieroglyphics on the staff I had handled, by the very figure associated with superstitious practices which I had copied from some weird book at his request, by all the strange impressions previously stamped on my mind,--might I not, in truth, have carried thither in sleep the staff, described the circle, and all the rest been but visionary delusion? Surely, surely, so common-sense, and so Julius Faber would interpret the riddles that perplexed me! Be that as it may, my first thought was to efface the marks on the floor. I found this easier than I had ventured to hope. I rubbed the circle and the pentacle away from the boards with the sole of my foot, leaving but an undistinguishable smudge behind. I know not why, but I felt the more nervously anxious to remove all such evidences of my nocturnal visit to that room, because Margrave had so openly gone thither to seek for the staff, and had so rudely named me to the servant as having meddled with it.